This week's Omer Study Packet on hunger and poverty highlights teachings from the 2006 JRF Omer Study and from our partners at Mazon: A Jewish Repsonse to Hunger and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA).

Especially time-sensitive is the action alert on the 2007-2008 Farm Bill, currently making its way through Congress.

We also feature innovative programming from JRF congregations Dorshei Derekh, Mishkan Shalom and Darchei Noam.  read more »

This January the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and United Jewish Communities (UJC) announced a partnership on JEWISH POVERTY month.

Hillel taught "Do not separate yourself from the community." – Pirkei Avot 2:5

"It’s a shonda in our community to be poor . . . people don’t want to self-identify." – Joan Strauss, Director of Programs and Training for the Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies

As part of JCPA’s national anti-poverty campaign, “There shall be no needy among you,” the JCPA is partnering with United Jewish Communities (UJC) to provide the information and resources to fulfill this call. Read on to find information on advocacy opportunities, a toolkit of suggested activities and other resources to help you strengthen the connection between direct service and advocacy and enhance and coordinate your anti-poverty activism with other communities across the country.  read more »

Below is a growing list of programmatic resources to aid congregations in their pursuit of Tikkun Olam, organized by issue, and type of resource.

The initial issues included are:

• Anti-Poverty/Hunger
• Homelessness/Housing
• Public Education
• Healthcare
• Public Safety/Crime
• Immigration/Immigrant Rights
• Economic Development/Living Wage
• Environmental Issues
• Voter Registration/Mobilization

These represent the most common issues being addressed by Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO) groups throughout the country.

For a more expansive selection, please see the list of Tikkun Olam resources located within the JRF Resources Library, as well as specific resources on advocacy within congregations.  read more »

JRF, a member of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs and an affiliate member of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, joins in supporting the JCPA's 2007-8 National Anti-Poverty Campaign.

There shall be no needy among you. (Deuteronomy 15:4)

See a summary of the JCPA Confronting Poverty Campaign.

INTRODUCTION:

The JCPA proposes the launching of a national anti-poverty campaign to:  read more »

• Re-energize the organized Jewish community around combating domestic poverty
• Strengthen the natural connection between direct service and anti-poverty advocacy in the Jewish community
• Enhance and coordinate anti-poverty activism taking place in communities around the nation

Jewish Community Unites to End Hunger Logo

On June 11, at 6:30 P.M. thousands of people of all faiths and backgrounds will gather at the Washington National Cathedral for the second Interfaith Convocation on hunger. We will raise our voices as one and work together to end hunger throughout the United States and the world.

A pre-Convocation gathering of the Jewish community is happening at 5:00 P.M. at Temple Michah, 2829 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20007.  read more »

Let’s communicate that we care as Reconstructionists by attending in large numbers. JRF's Rabbi Shawn Zevit will be leading the Reconstructionist delegation.

There are many JRF initiatives or letters of support in which we are continually asked to participate. In all of these cases, JRF is invited to join other interfaith or Jewish denominational coalitions in national and international social justice areas or letters/programs about forthcoming legislation or policy in keeping with our already existing resolutions. Examples can be found in the 2008 Omer Learning Initiative on External Partnerships.

The role of the Director of Tikkun Olam in external affiliations is: (a) to represent JRF and JRF member communities in social justice events as they arise and maintain committed and develop new relationships with organizations, coalitions and initiatives outside the Reconstructionist movement; (b) to delegate responsibility for specific relationships to other appropriate parties and to insure that adequate documentation and representation in all relationships is maintained; and (c) to establish and manage a process for responding to requests for collaboration from outside our movement and from member communities within (this includes a 24-hour turn-around sub committee in matters of sign-on's and crises response). These duties are executed in conjunction with the Executive Vice-President, the External Affiliations Committees of the Board, with other JRF staff, and in coordination with the RRC and the RRA as appropriate. Resolutions are proposed from either working committees of the JRF board, movement-wide commissions, or member communities that submit them for consideration at JRF bi-ennial conventions.

Some of our most active partners include the Religious Action Center, the American Jewish World Service, the Jewish Coalition on Public Affairs, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish Coalition on Disaster Relief (The Reconstructionist Movement is a member of the Executive Council of the JCDR), the Jewish Funds for Justice, the National Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and the Green Hevre and many interfaith and non-profit social justice coalitions.

Click here for a sample of some of the current or past letters or initiatives to which we have lent in-name support.

Mission of the External Affiliations Committee:

The committee and staff reviews and identifies organizations both Jewish and general, whose goals and objectives make them appropriate for JRF membership and/or affiliation. The committee will make specific recommendations to the Executive Committee and board and will coordinate, (with the JRF staff representative), JRF representation within these organizations.

JRF External Affiliations Committee

Val Kaplan (Chair), Rabbi Shawn Zevit (Director of External Affiliations and Tikkun Olam), Roni Berkowitz, Dan Cedarbaum, Bob Barkin (JRF President), Eric Caplan, Vicki Presser, Carl Sheingold (EVP). Randi Brenowitz (Keddem Cong.) Contact: Shawn Zevit, Director of External Affiliations.

External Affiliations

On the anniversary of the 2005 Anti-Hunger convocation, JRF was asked through Mazon and Second Harvest to represent the Jewish tradition and community's teachings on responding to hunger and poverty at a national symposium day on ending hunger in Washington, D.C., June 5th, 2006. Learn more about the symposium...

On June 6, 2005, the first ever Interfaith Convocation on Hunger assembled one of the largest gatherings of anti-hunger and anti-poverty activists in the nation's capital in decades. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation was pleased to be represented at and endorsed this event and invited all people of faith to call for an end to hunger.

By Rabbi Brant Rosen
Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, Evanston, IL

Bless what forces us to invent
goodness every morning and what never frees
us from the cost of knowledge, which is
to act on what we know again and again. Marge Piercy

As the 2006 Hurricane Season commences, many of us still recall the indelible images from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina last fall. But in addition to the tragic ruin of Katrina, it is impossible to ignore the remarkable mobilization of American citizens that ensued. In the wake of this terrible disaster, so many of us created a real and palpable communal bond with people who lived far away from our own neighborhoods—in most cases with people whom most of us did not know personally. It was truly a time in which we saw first-hand how citizens and communities can work together in the spirit of compassion and caring.  read more »

In 2006, the focus of JRF's Interactive Omer Study, was Tikkun Olam (repair of our world), specifically on the issues of hunger and poverty.

Visit the site to see the teachings and study texts from rabbis, hazzanim (cantors), educators, rabbinical students and members of JRF congregations, all accessible from its left side-bar menu.

By Rabbi Fred Dobb
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda, Maryland

 read more »